Ghosts
by Kohaku-chan
Summary: Ghosts inhabit the Preventer Headquarters after a tragic and mysterious accident occured 10 years ago on All Hallows Eve.
1. Default Chapter

I actually wrote this last year for Halloween but decided against posting it cause I wasn't sure about it. I've done some revising to it and I decided to go ahead and post it this year.  
  
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Title: Ghosts Part: 1/1 Author: Kohaku Archive: Team Rocket and Shinigami Castle; Anime-Zing! Others please ask first. Category: Horror (but it isn't scary), Angst Rating: R Warnings: ghosts, death, fire, and mentions of black magic. Pairings: 1xR, 2x3, 5x4, 6x9 Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing I only borrowed the characters. But you know a funny thing happened.I lost them while on my way to return them. Feedback: Kohaku_Neesan @ yahoo.com (no spaces)  
  
Notes: Um this is my Halloween contribution I guess. I tried to make it interesting but I'll leave it up to you. I'm not sure it makes any sense. This is post Endless Waltz.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
They'd been gone for almost 10 years and the Preventers who worked in the building still swore up and down they could feel their presence, and every Hallows Eve and Halloween Day the Preventers got very jumpy. Understandable really, since it was on All Hallows Eve that the mysterious incident had occurred; they recalled only a sudden burst of fire, screams and then silence, it had never been truly explained. But even the most disbelieving Preventer would get unsettled, after all the activity in the building picked up dramatically on those days, and after nightfall the energy level in the room would rise bringing fear, pain, anger or anguish along with it; and the strange occurrences that would happen from time to time all year long became much more frequent in the days leading up to Halloween, sometimes becoming violent like a sudden burst of rage being released.  
  
Some of the employees claimed that the ghosts of the Gundam pilots haunted Preventers Headquarters.  
  
The pilots always seemed to make their presence known proving that in death they were as active as they had been when they were alive. Unfortunately they had taken a bunch of mission files, no one had been able to locate them and efforts to get them to give them back had failed.  
  
But always, always, during the hallowed season, the energy levels in the building would rise even higher, so much it almost became unbearable for the Preventer Agents', emotions were sharp and keenly felt, fluxuating dramatically or hitting them with a combination of feelings. The atmosphere would become charged making the hairs on their skin stand up and leaving an agent feeling like they'd grabbed hold of an electric fence and had forgotten to let go.  
  
Employees hated the Halloween season at Preventers.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Sally rubbed the back of her tingling neck, and went back to work, writing up a report. A few minutes later she felt it again.  
  
"Duo stop it, I need to get this done." Sally heard a chuckle, muted as though she heard it through a fog and she turned around. Nothing, but she'd expected that. She never saw them. She'd never even heard anyone else say that they had.  
  
A moment later the chair in front of her desk creaked, rocking back slightly and then she heard a thump on the edge of her desk. Sally shook her head amused and went back to work.  
  
"Comfortable?" Again she heard that muted chuckle. A picture frame turned on her desk, making scraping noises as it did so, for a moment there was nothing then the air around the room grew sad and then became angry. The chair dropped back on all four legs abruptly, the feeling dissipating and Sally knew Duo had left. Sally grabbed the picture frame and turned it around again, looking at it for a few minutes. She knew why he'd gotten sad, the picture was taken over 10 years ago after the last war and the pilots had been alive then. In the picture were the 5 boys, Une, Noin, Relena, Dorothy, herself and Zechs. It was the only photo that had ever been taken of all of them together. Only months later the boys had been gone.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Duo walked into an office slamming the door behind him. The office was the only one in the building that didn't get used by the Preventers; the five pilots had used the large room prior to the incident, their desks still in their places and the belongings that had been packed up and put in a storage room had been put back by the pilots. At first, after the incident, the room had been cleaned of their personal things, being put up in a storage closet until someone claimed their personal effects and Preventers had been assigned to use the office but all had quickly left after being terrified.  
  
The first agents had rearranged the room and when the pilots had discovered this they'd become angry. This was their office and nobody touched their things. Finding boxes they'd removed the foreign belongings from the desks and put them into the empty boxes; and the desks, filing cabinets and miscellaneous furniture had been put back where they'd had it. Of course that was AFTER the agents had fled the room where objects were currently moving about all on their own. The agents had later found their things sitting in the hallway outside the office and had refused to go back in.  
  
After two more tries with different agents each time, Une had given up and left the office to its ghosts. But the pilots still hadn't been happy, they wanted their things back and they'd searched the building over looking for their missing belongings.  
  
Zechs, who had returned with his wife Lucretzia for his sisters wedding and had decided to stay, had been walking down the hall one day when he'd seen boxes coming towards him. He'd recognized them as the boxes that had been used to store the Gundam pilots' personal effects, as he'd been the one to pack up the office with the help of Lucretzia and Sally, they had clearly marked each box with their names and he could see them on the floating boxes. The five boxes stopped outside the office, the door had opened and they had passed inside, the door shutting sharply behind them. He'd stood outside the office listening to the noises coming from inside. Eventually he'd gathered up the courage to open the door and look inside when things had quieted.  
  
The room had looked just as it use to, the coat rack had four Preventers jackets hanging on it and 1 baseball cap, the fifth jacket was draped over the back of Wufei's chair; coffee mugs sat on Heero, Duo and Trowa's desks, tea cups on Quatre and Wufei's desks.  
  
Shoulder holsters with their guns, which hadn't been issued by the Preventers, had been draped over the backs of three of the chairs, and Zechs had felt sure that if he opened up the bottom drawers of Wufei and Heero's desks he'd find their guns and holsters tucked inside where they had always left them.  
  
The coffee brewer only Duo could get to work was back on the table it had once sat on, right next to the electric tea brewer that had been used by Quatre and Wufei. Not far were a box of tea bags and a can of coffee grounds, some filters, sugar and creamer. Ironically Zechs had noted that the pots had been plugged in. He'd wondered at the time if ghosts could even drink. They'd learned ghosts could not only drink, they could eat too, evidenced by the amount of donuts that would go missing whenever someone brought some in. Quatre had had an insatiable sweet tooth.  
  
Wufei glared at Duo, the slammed door had startled him. "Was that necessary Maxwell?"  
  
Duo slumped into his chair with a sigh. "Sorry"  
  
"What's wrong Duo?"  
  
"Everything Q, everything."  
  
"When you left you were in such a good mood. What happened?"  
  
"I was in Sally's office, she was in there, just like always."  
  
Wufei sighed. "That's all? That's why you are upset?"  
  
"No, she knew I was there today, she even heard me I think." Some days the boys could see and or hear the activity of the Preventers around the building and sometimes the Preventers could hear them. But they never saw the pilots. "You know that picture she had on her desk? I was looking at it and I got sad and then I got angry." Duo's head dropped back and he stared at the ceiling. "Why do we do this? Why do we keep putting ourselves through this?"  
  
Heero frowned. "You know why we do this. We have to know what happened, we have to find out why it happened. When the Fire Investigators were here they found no reason for what happened, there were no gas leaks, no signs of bombs or arson, they couldn't even find where it originated at. Even we couldn't find anything."  
  
Trowa stood up and pulled Duo's chair around so he was facing Trowa. "It's hard I know, it hurts to see them because you miss them. The only thing that makes being here bearable for me is that I'm not alone; I'm here with you guys. I'm here with you." Trowa sank down on his knees in front of his beloved. "I'm even thankful for the time we've spent together because otherwise we might not have gotten together."  
  
"That may be the only good thing about this." Duo replied, running his finger down Trowa's cheek.  
  
Quatre and Wufei could share those sentiments, the two pilots had never been close friends but during the last ten years they'd finally become closer and eventually realized they'd fallen in love with each other.  
  
Heero spoke up quietly. "Trowa is right. Being together makes us stronger, I don't know what I would have done if all of you hadn't been here when Relena found out."  
  
They all shuddered at the memory of that day. It had taken two years, from the day they first met, for Heero and Relena to finally get together and get married, only months later after the wedding the tragedy had occurred in Preventers HQ. She'd been called and told there'd been an accident at HQ and she'd rushed right over despite being cautioned against it. The smell of charred flesh had hung heavy in the air but seeing it and realizing what had occurred was too much, Relena had been sickened and devastated. Seeing Relena in so much pain had been agony for Heero, he'd felt helpless to do anything for her and having his friends there had helped.  
  
Wufei glanced at his watch and stood up, gathering his belongings. "I think we should leave. It's starting to get late." Wufei suggested, reminding them of the time. They never stayed the night at Preventers; they always left the old HQ before it got dark to return another day, none of them being able to stand the thought of staying there all night.  
  
Quatre and Wufei now lived together at a Winner estate in the city; after he and Quatre found each other, Wufei had given up going to the apartment he'd once shared with his partner Sally. Duo and Trowa lived in a converted warehouse Duo had purchased in the city when he'd become a Preventer; the 2- story warehouse had been remodeled to include a loft apartment on the top floor. Duo had bought it because of the space and because no one would bother him, and no one did. Before Trowa had realized his feelings for Duo, Trowa would go to his sister's apartment; she kept it for the off-season when the circus returned to Earth, when she wasn't there it was empty. Now the two men shared the loft apartment and spent many hours tinkering on vehicles in the empty space below. Heero always went home to the house he and Relena had bought, to the warm hug that was waiting for him, and after today he'd need it.  
  
The other four men nodded and gathered their things off their desks. Quatre grabbed his shoulder holster from the back of his chair, slipping it on. Wufei handed him his jacket and slipped into his own holster and jacket, the other pilots doing the same. Quatre grabbed the tea maker and Trowa grabbed the coffee maker.  
  
The five men always brought the tea and coffee makers along with their mugs and cups when they were going to be there since they would spend the entire day there. All of it was gathered up. Nobody even went there anymore except for the Gundam pilots and they only went there in the few days around Halloween. On those days the power to Preventers HQ would be turned on and life would briefly return to the old building.  
  
Leaving their office and carrying all their belongings in their bags or in their arms, they saw a few Preventers working at their desks in the open office area used by junior agents and caught sight of Une walking down the hallway purposefully. Not a single one saying a word, the boys passed by unnoticed on their way out.  
  
The group walked quietly out of the building, stopping at the entrance Quatre turned and looked back into the building. The others stopped and waited. "You know what the saddest part about this is?"  
  
Wufei walked back to stand by Quatre. "What?"  
  
"They don't know they are dead. Truth is, they think we are. I heard them talking about it once. I almost wondered if they were right." Quatre looked from the entrance up the building, holding the tea maker under one arm and taking in the derelict appearance of the once impressive Preventers HQ, now abandoned. Everything that had been inside the building was still there. Except for a few things that had escaped the flames as well as everything in their office - including some paper and computer files that had been in use by the five pilots at the time - nothing had escaped untouched when nearly every single person in the building had spontaneously combusted.  
  
The screams they'd heard had been terrifying and they'd rushed out of their office to see what was going on only to be horrified by the sight of their friends and co-workings screaming in pain and completely engulfed in flames, they'd tried smothering the flames off the people closest to them and when the fire alarms went off and the sprinkler system kicked in they'd thought it would help but it had seemed to have no effect. When the fire department and paramedics had arrived it had been too late, the flames had gone out but the victims had been dead and the five young men had been in a state of shock.  
  
"Well if they think we're dead that explains why they packed up our things and rearranged our office. I always wondered why they did that." Trowa remarked.  
  
Quatre smiled briefly. "Yes it does."  
  
"Guys come on, lets go. Relena's waiting for us." Relena had insisted that the men come over for dinner that night.  
  
Duo chuckled. "You're such a sap Heero. Oh! Quatre, catch!" Duo tossed a box to the blonde.  
  
Quatre caught the box with his free hand and looked at Duo curiously, Duo winked at him. "Figured I might as well give you the rest of the donuts since you ate most of them."  
  
Quatre's cheeks turned pink and the pilots laughed. Wufei slipped his free arm around Quatre and hugged him. "Let's get out of here."  
  
As they five pilots departed none of them saw  
  
Quatre shivered as a chill went down his spine and climbed into the car he and Wufei had bought, grateful to be leaving. Wufei started the car and they pulled out behind Heero, Trowa and Duo following behind them in their truck. Quatre had never mentioned to any of them that as it got darker he could feel a growing evil in the building, and he often wondered if they were better off not knowing what happened.  
  
He resisted the impulse to look back at the empty building, if he had, he would have seen the red headed little girl staring out the window at them with hate on her face, angry that they still lived, that the spell she'd cast 10 years ago on one chilly Hallows Eve had backfired. Meant to kill them it had backfired and killed everyone in the building - except the Gundam pilots - engulfing them all and herself in flames. The fact that Mariemaia knew nothing of magic and so shouldn't have been meddling in black magic mattered little to her. She blamed the failure on them and wished that they wouldn't always leave before she came out to play.  
  
The closer it came to the anniversary of her death the angrier she became, spurred on by the fact that because no one had even known she was there, no one - ghost or living - was ever aware she was around. She was forever unseen. Though she did find it quite amusing scaring those stupid ghosts out of their wits year round.  
  
No one knew for sure what happened to Mariemaia, most assumed that Lady Une had taken the girl with her to work that day as it wasn't uncommon for her to do so; however the five former Gundam pilots had no recollection of her being there that day and in fact Une had not brought the child in on that fateful day. But there were none alive who could say for certain. 


	2. Author Thanks

Thank you all very much for your reviews, I'm thrilled that you enjoyed the story so much. I was rather worried it would be too tame or too confusing or just no good and all of your responses have been wonderful.  
  
Thank you,  
  
Kohaku-chan 


End file.
